Sunday, April 7, 2013

For the past year or two, filmmaker Penelope Spheeris has been smack-dab in the middle of it.

She spent a year working as a story editor on the TV sitcom "Roseanne," then segued into a gig as director of the rap band 2 Live Crew's long-form video, "Banned in the U.S.A." It's as though she went mining for showbiz controversy and struck the mother lode.

Of her experience on "Roseanne," a TV series now legendary for battles between writers, producers and stars, Spheeris likens it to "having a belated Hollywood boot camp. It was pretty horrendous."

And the matter of her touring with and filming 2 Live Crew, the music industry's bad boys? Well, we'll get to that later.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

By DONALD PORTERStandard-Examiner staffRobert Altman is on the phone from his office in Los Angeles, laughing ruefully that many journalists are labeling "Vincent and Theo," his new film, a "'comeback.""I wish I could make a comeback," he says. "At first, I resented that by saying, 'Jeez, I haven't been anywhere.' But now I have no work. I'd like to make a comeback, whatever that means."The currently unemployed film director will be attending the Sundance Film Festival, running today through Jan. 27 in Park City, in conjunction with a six-film retrospective of his work, and to host the regional premiere of "Vincent and Theo" at 7 p.m. Thursday in Park City's Egyptian Theater. The new film is his look at the relationship between painter Vincent van Gogh and his brother, Theo, who supported the artist's nine-year career.